George Bush And The Return Of Malaise

The Bush administration begins to exhibit telltale signs of a familiar malady, the same one that did in the country`s last Democratic administration and ushered in a decade of Republican presidents. Not since Jimmy Carter have the signs been so clear. The diagnosis is unavoidable: Malaise.

The symptoms are everywhere. Indecision. Contradiction. Procrastination. Encroaching self-pity. The old Fortress Mentality should make its appearance any day now at the White House. The search for a scapegoat already has begun, and John Sununu, chief of staff, is now the chief sacrificial offering. It couldn`t happen to a more deserving guy. There are those who would like to see Richard Darman, the budget director, or Nicholas Brady, secretary of the Treasury, go too. Both have come to epitomize the administration`s complacency in the face of troubles that are no longer deniable.

It`s not the country`s troubles, mainly economic this time, that characterize the political disease called Malaise. It`s a refusal to take action against them, or even face them. Malaise is Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater during the energy crisis instead of unleashing the free market;

bargaining over American hostages instead of smashing the Ayatollah and his thugs; and wringing his hands over mile-high inflation instead of striking out in a new direction-any new direction. Lest we forget, that besieged president also tried revamping his Cabinet, shifting aides, bringing in new faces, consulting PR types . . . as if unaware that the principal problem lay with the incompetent-in-chief.

Now a conservative crackup begins to resemble that earlier, liberal one. Malaise does not consist of being overwhelmed by problems; it`s accepting them with no higher aim than damage control. It`s another name for defeatism, and it does not go over well in a country that almost always will choose hope over fear. Just as Americans will choose action over inaction-even if the action isn`t sure to work.

Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan understood as much. The New Deal may not have overcome the Great Depression, but it kept Americans busy and hopeful till it could be overcome. Reagan was no economist or any other kind of thinker, but he was an accomplished actor who went with his instincts. It was always morning in America with Ronald Reagan-and with FDR, too.

Will George Bush snap out of it and take command at home as he did so masterfully in foreign affairs? The signs are not auspicious. The

administration seems to be putting off any decisions until after the State of the Union Address, as if economic trends waited on state occasions.

The president seems undecided about even staying undecided. As Congress faded into adjournment, Bush vaguely endorsed an economic panacea pushed by Newt Gingrich, the Republicans` loose cannon in the House, before pulling back into do-nothingism. He fought racial quotas for a couple of years before vaguely accepting that pernicious notion in a new civil rights bill. Then his administration drafted an order barring such racial preferences, which the president promptly disavowed. It was like watching a pendulum return to dead center every time.

One day the President tries jawboning the banks, saying interest rates on credit cards are too high, and then drops the subject when the stock market plunges. John Sununu, big help that he is, makes a point of saying that he didn`t put the reference to credit cards in the president`s speech. With loyal aides like that, Bush needs no accusers.

Looking back, diagnosticians of Malaise might agree that the ascendance of drift over mastery in this administration began when Bush broke his no-new- taxes pledge and reached a budget compromise that left him looking weak and the economy weaker. A president can change policies without suffering great harm, but this one appears to have no policy at all.

No wonder the latest polls show George Bush slipping. Only one in four Americans is said to approve his handling of the economy, raising the question of where a quarter of the poll`s respondents have been for the past year or so. Democrats grow feisty and Republicans divided. GOP activists, like Jack Kemp in the Cabinet and Dick Armey in the House, go after the president`s sleepy palace guard. Pat Buchanan threatens to quit kibitzing and start running for president. Most predictable of all, David Duke joins the presidential fray, proving you can`t keep a bad man down.

There is still time, though not much, for George Bush to assume command, send the first mate down below, swing the ship of state around, unfurl the flag, and chart a bold new course that will cheer all except the most committed partisans, who may be loud but are never very influential in the face of prosperity.

Unless he takes the wheel soon, the organizer of victory abroad may find himself hooted at home. Even the best intentioned of leaders can fall victim to the Malaise. See Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, both of whom made splendid ex-presidents in time. Surely George Bush would prefer to make a splendid president now.